Erin Brannigan is Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of New South Wales. She is of Irish and Danish political exile, convict, and settler descent. Her publications include Moving Across Disciplines: Dance in the Twenty-First Century (Sydney: Currency House, 2010), Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Bodies of Thought: 12 Australian Choreographers, co-edited...view more
Erin Brannigan is Associate Professor in Theatre and Performance at the University of New South Wales. She is of Irish and Danish political exile, convict, and settler descent. Her publications include Moving Across Disciplines: Dance in the Twenty-First Century (Sydney: Currency House, 2010), Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Bodies of Thought: 12 Australian Choreographers, co-edited with Virginia Baxter (Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2014). She has published various chapters and articles in film, performance and dance journals and anthologies. Her current research project is Precarious Movements: Dance and the Museum with AGNSW, Tate UK, NGV, MUMA and artist Shelley Lasica and monographs associated with this project are Choreography, Visual Art and Experimental Composition 1950s -1970s (London: Routledge, 2022) and The Persistence of Dance: Choreography and Contemporary Art 1990s-2020s (NYP).
My Grants
SELECTED GRANTS
- Australian Linkage Grant 2021-2023, LP200100009, Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum, with Dr. Rochelle Hayley UNSW, Art Gallery of NSW (Carolyn Murphy Head of Conservation and Lisa Catt, Curator of International Art), Monash University Museum of Art (Hannah Mathews, Senior Curator), National Gallery of Victoria (Pip Wallis, Curator of Contemporary Art), Tate UK (Louise Lawson, Conservation Manager of Time-Based Media Conservation), and independent choreographer, Shelley Lasica. ($392, 181)
- UNSW Learning and Teaching Innovation Grant, ‘New Paradigms for Performance Pedagogies,’ with Dr. Bryoni Trezise, 2015. ($28 000)
- ARC Grant, 2013-2016 for DP13010457 The Experimental Humanities with Assoc. Prof Edward Scheer and Professor Stephen Muecke ($224, 000)
- UNSW Goldstar Grant 2011 for The Experimental Humanities with Assoc. Prof Edward Scheer and Professor Stephen Muecke ($30 000).
- Australia Council Artform Development Grant for 12 Australian Choreographers, 2011, auspiced by RealTime. ($15 000)
- Australia Council out-of-round funding for 12 Australian Choreographers, 2010, auspiced by RealTime. ($10 000)
My Qualifications
BAHons Sydney University
PhD UNSW
My Research Activities
Dr. Erin Brannigan was named the national ‘Field Leader of Theatre and Performance Studies’ by The Australian newspaper in the September 2019 special report, Research. Her research explores the condition of dance through its relationship with other art forms in interdisciplinary practices. Generated by specific works of art and art practices, studies cover: dance and the screen arts; gesture as a cross-disciplinary conceptual framework; interdisciplinary compositional strategies of the avant-garde (historic and contemporary); minimalism as a site of disciplinary assertion; and the experiment-experience nexus through a research-workshop practice with local artists. She was part of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant, The Experimental Humanities (2013-2016), with Professor Stephen Muecke and Professor Edward Scheer. Her primary current research project, Dance and the Visual Arts: Composition : Experiment : Sensation, involves academic and creative research associates nationally and internationally, publications including articles and books, and an industry-based project Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum - Exhibiting, Curating, Collecting and Conserving Dance (2021-2024) with partners at Tate UK, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria, and Monash University Museum of Art which has attracted funding of nearly $400,000 from the Australia Research Council. She co-founded a School Research Cell in 2015, Intermedial Composition, with creative writing colleague, Dr. Stephanie Bishop, and has facilitated an industry-based group, Writing Dancing, since 2010 which involves artists, students and academics. New Paradigms for Performance Pedagogies is a research project in partnership with Dr. Bryoni Trezise focused on the decolonization of UNSW’s Performing Arts curriculum, and Dancing Sydney: Mapping Movements: Performing Histories is a partnership with Sydney University, Macquarie University and the State Library of NSW working to secure the legacy of NSW-based dance artists through innovative archiving strategies. She is on the editorial board of The International Journal of Screendance and is a member of the research team Espas (Esthétique de la Performance et Arts du Spectacle) within A.C.T.E. (Arts Créations Théories Esthétiques) at the Sorbonne, Paris. She was the founding Director of ReelDance (since 1999) and has curated dance screen programs and exhibitions for Sydney Festival 2008, Melbourne International Arts Festival 2003 and international dance screen festivals. Her most recent exhibition was In Response: Dialogues with RealTime (25 Feb to 25 April 2019).
Curatorial Website: http://cargocollective.com/Erinbrannigan/About-Erin-Brannigan
My Research Supervision
Areas of supervision
Contemporary dance practices and theory, choreography and intermedial practices, performance archives, arts reviewing, choreography, film studies, artists writing, intermedial composition, experimental arts practices and the historic avant-garde, improvisation, mind-body practices, dance philosophy, visual arts theory
Currently supervising
Nalina Wait, Western improvised dance practices: pedagogies and philosophy
Lizzie Thomson, Sensation versus Sensationalism: Modest Acts of Resistance in Choreographic Practice
Lisa Synnott, Choreography, Collaboration and Intellectual Property
My Engagement
My research has interfaced with the arts industry since my first monograph, Dancefilm, which grew out of a festival I directed that toured Australia and New Zealand 2000-2008, ReelDance International Dance Screen Festival. My current research project Precarious Movements involves several art museums and artists, and my archival and curatorial work with the State Library and RealTime supports local dance artists. I also host artist panels regularly for Carriageworks. My teaching areas also articulate to industry; I run the performing arts internships in SAM, and teach Reviewing the Arts in which I work with local venues and press outlets to produce published student reviews. The Theatre and Performance Studies capstone course Program and Repertoire, which I've taught for 4 years, is our industry facing course and has guest lectures from key staff at Sydney Opera House, Griffin Theatre, Sydney Film Festival, Carriageworks, as well as dance and performance artists.
My Teaching
Lecturer in Theatre and Performance and Dance Studies; Reviewing the Arts, Performing Arts Internships, Choreography, Performance and the Visual Arts, Musicals, Dance and Popular Culture, Program and Repertoire
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5156-8304
